Download Now Accidental Saints: Finding God In All The Wrong People Formulated By Nadia Bolz-Weber Accessible Through Bound Copy

freakin' love Nadia BolzWeber, She released the incredible sitelinkPastrix just two years ago, and she's gathered enough stories since then to have a brandnew inspiring, challenging, funny book about God and people that made me cry on at least three occasions.
This book is structured over the course of a liturgical year, beginning and ending at All Saints' Day, though she draws on stories from multiple years, My takeaway from this book is that I don't need to try harder to "be a good Christian/person" I need to work harder to internalize grace, mercy, and love, and then God will be able to use me in the lives of others regardless of what I myself try to do.
I can practically hear her saying, "I know, that doesn't make sense, but that's how God works, " And then she has six stories to illuminate her thoughts, She challenges those who think they can find God and live faith without being in community with other people, Her raw honesty, complete with appropriately placed curse words, is like balm on the soul of a Christian who wants to follow Jesus' example but can't figure out how to apply typical Christian platitudes to real life.
I'd recommend it for basically everybody, I was a little tentative about this one, thinking that the tattooedswearingpastor thing might be all BolzWeber had to offer, but I needn't have worried, Her theology is actually pretty orthodox from an Episcopalian perspective, at least, and her stories are well told and touching, Nothing new, really, but a refreshing reminder of God's boundless love and grace and His call to us to care for even the least lovable people.
I had the opportunity to read an advance copy of Nadia BolzWeber's forthcoming book, Unlike Pastrix, it tells stories primarily from her life as a pastor, with little emphasis on her earlier life, Her writing is, as always, engaging, and in this book rather selfdeprecating, as she tells stories of people who became accidental saints in her life, It's a wonderful book. BolzWeber offers a forthright word about grace and mercy, tempering the charming confidence exhibited in earlier writing with a winsome humility,

As a pastor, I both love the stories of relationships with parishioners and also find them uncomfortable, having made such great efforts to avoid writing about my own for the sake of privacy.
BolzWeber includes a note acknowledging that she writes about real people and does change their names, I'm fascinated that in an era when we can find information about others so much more easily that boundary would be lowered, It's less that I am critical and more that I am curious,

As a nonLutheran, I love no qualifications here reading her descriptions of Lutheran liturgy, House for All makes its own unique adaptations to traditional practices in ways that are creative and appealing, while keeping traditional liturgical language, It's understandable that visitors overran their services, It must have been difficult and at the same time obvious to conclude that being a sort of field trip destination for others was not good for the congregation.


As a writer who is also a person of faith, I loved the turns her stories took, Some particular favorites without spoilers: her trip to the Holy Land, a complication with her calendar, and the chapter about Judas, Many of the high points of the liturgical year appear in the book, from All Saints to Easter Vigil,

I confess that I began reading wondering if this book would share a weakness with the second half of "Pastrix, " After the strong first portion about her childhood and young adulthood, the chapters about her ministry seemed to have a pattern ofthis happened andhere's what I preached about it.
I've read Nadia BolzWeber's sermons they are great on the page, and I can only imagine they are even better in person, In the context of the book, however, the sermon portions created a weak

ending for some of the chapters by changing the rhythm of her writing, I'm glad to say that with one exception, I didn't feel that change of rhythm in "Accidental Saints, "

I received the advance copy from the publisher with no inducement to offer a positive review, This is a book I will plan to buy in its final form the review copy hadandpoint type! In the spirit on honesty, I'd like to state that I typically avoid books by Christian authors.
I have an uncontrollable phobia of platitudes and easy answers, This book was different and BoltWeber doesn't claim to have all the answers, which immediately got my attention and respect,

Nadia BoltzWeber's writing is raw and honest, She asks a lot of questions, and sometimes those questions don't have answers, There's no formula on how to live a perfect life or list of rules to follow in order to gain sainthood in this book, However, what the author does show us how to do is recognize the beauty in other people, even when it take unconventional forms, The book contains stories about real people, and the author confesses her own mistakes and shortcomings that helped her to see God more clearly through other people.
Highly recommended reading.


Note: I was given a free ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, So here's the thing: I grew up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, was baptized, confirmed, and then went to high school and found nothing in the liturgy or the service to make me stay in the church.


And then I went to live in Japan and had to wrestle with a WHOLE COUNTRY of folks with ayear old history that has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus.


So I stopped believing the church or Christianity had anything to do with me, I'm a flaming liberal, and a religion that makes outsiders of people is not for me, I wanted religion that was inclusive, and active, . . and so I left.

But somewhere along the lines, I wanted to sing in a choir again, So I started coming back to church, And somewhere along the lines I realized I could say the words of the Apostles Creed, sing the hymns, and say the Lord's Prayer and it didn't matter one bit whether I believed it or not.
It was about doing things that helped me be a better person,

And then I got breast cancer and had to go through chemo and yadda yadda yadda, I couldn't be a strong, independent person anymore, and had to accept help.
And somewhere along the lines of accepting help, of being weak, and needing others I found friendship, I found a church community,

But my terrible secret remained: I'm not sure the God in the ELCA liturgy is the god I believe, I mean, I certainly don't thinks of years of Japanese people are condemned to a fiery pits of hell because Jesus happened to live in the Middle East.
A God of love would not work that way,

And that's the long way of saying Nadia BolzWeber's book speaks strongly to me, She writes about her failures as a person, and as a PASTOR to love the people around her, the very people who show here the most grace when she commits to speaking in Australia instead of officiating at good friends' weddings, or avoids a parishioner with halitosis and boring stories.


And she verbalizes the twin sides of the "blessing" and "neediness" issue that have been a thorn in my mental side since the first time I did volunteer work in high school.
If you go out to do mission and give service, it's so very easy to fall into a mental trap, Here, she explains it better than me:

"While we as people of God are called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, the whole "we're blessed to be a blessing" thing can still be kind of dangerous.
It can be dangerous when we selfimportantly place ourselves above the world, waiting to descend on those below so we can be a "blessing" they've been waiting for, like it or not.
Plus, seeing myself as the blessing can pretty easily obscure the way in which I am actually part of the problem and can hide the ways in which I, too, am poor and needing care.
"

How do we go about doing service without making a distinction between those who are receiving and those giving I think part of the answer lies in stop giving into the sin of pride about being strong, or independent or being a gogetter or organizational maven or the one who knows where all the spoons go in the church kitchen.
It's about being open to the help we all need, We are all broken in our own ways, And about this other side of the service coin, Nadia writes:

"And receiving grace is basically the best shitty feeling in the world, I don't want to need it, Preferably I could just do it all and be it all and never mess up, That may be what I would prefer, but it is never what I need, I need to be broken apart and put back into a different shape by the merging of things human and divine, which is really screwing up and receiving grace and love and forgiveness rather than receiving what I really deserve.
I need the very thing that I will do everything I can to avoid needing, "

So this is a supereasy book of anecdotes and stories and vignettes about her parishioners and people she's encountered who forced her to confront grace.
And I much appreciated the downtoearth tone, .